Ireland Illustrated 1680-1860

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With any ancestors from Ireland, there wasn’t always photos available of the earlier years – say before 1860 (because photography was a very new invention). So instead it is great to see that many illustrations (drawings) were done of places and people in Ireland over the decades, mostly from travel accounts.

The online site, Ireland Illustrated 1680-1860, brings 523 such illustrations digitally for you to view. They were from books, pamphlets, documents, and printed works of the period. At the top, you see you can browse by images, person, title, map or category (such as cities, cottages, farms, churches, etc).

Selecting images to browse is a good start, or use the ‘quick start’ if you have a specific location or name in mind.

With each, there is the thumbnail of the image, a description / title, artist and date. Click on the thumbnail for more details, a page worth in most cases, plus a map of where the event took place. You can download the image and get the information.